Greece’s Roman Road

Chapter 66: educate

In 1887, after nearly three years of hard work, the railway from Matadi to Kinshasa in the Congo River Basin was finally completed, which also meant that Congo could finally enter the normal development stage.

Through this strategic railway, Congo's natural resources and European and American commodities can finally be exchanged with each other.

Thanks to the Berlin Conference in 1884, countries allowed the Congo Commission to levy a 10% import and export tariff. Constantine spent a lot of energy for many years investing in the Congo region, and finally ushered in the first return, 150,000 pounds. .

It was previously agreed with Banning that 5% of the Congolese finances would be the income from the many huge investments made by the royal family over the years, and 10% would be allocated to the Royal Greek Education Foundation to develop education in Greece.

Without money, everything is difficult. Previously, due to Constantine’s strong advocacy for the royal family to invest in the Congo River basin and acquire colonies, the royal family’s funds of more than 10 million francs have been successively invested in the early development of the Congo colony over the years. Tantin's hands have been tense.

Except for some projects of strategic value, such as Tesla's alternating current system, other things that involve large expenses, Constantine has always been exempted from it.

This kept Constantine under a lot of pressure.

Good luck, many years of hard work, and now I finally have my first income.

Looking at the two cheques that Schmidt handed over, the Royal Greek Educational Foundation, which has already been well-prepared, can finally vigorously promote compulsory education.

The reason why Constantine paid attention to the implementation of compulsory education is that education can improve the quality of the people, which is only part of the factors.

Part of the reason is the uniqueness of the Balkans.

This piece of land located at the junction of the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, due to its important strategic position, has been ruled by major empires successively, the Alexander Empire (the first empire spanning the continent of Asia, Europe and Africa), followed by the ancient Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire , and finally the Ottoman Empire.

In the long history, the territories of the Balkans, most of the time, were part of a certain empire.

The empires that ruled this land in the past dynasties were almost all multi-ethnic and even multi-religious.

For example, the ancient horse empire (including the Eastern Roman Empire), the ethnic groups under its rule include Latins, Jews, Greeks, Slavs, Germans, Armenians, Egyptians, Gauls and other ethnic groups.

The number of ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire is also numerous, as for religion, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and different schools in each religion.

It is this special geographical location and history that makes the ethnic groups in the Balkans mixed and religious beliefs chaotic.

Due to being under the rule of a multi-ethnic empire for a long time, in order to maintain the stability of the empire, the empire naturally needs to weaken the self-identity of each ethnic group. For example, ancient Rome (Eastern Rome) supported Christianity, and Ottoman Turkey respected yslism.

Therefore, in the land of the Balkans, the integration of nationalities is going on almost all the time.

For example, in the 7th to 11th centuries, in the eyes of the MSL in the Arabian Peninsula, those who believed in the Orthodox Church were Romans, and they did not distinguish between Greeks, Slavs or Germans.

In addition, the mountainous geography of the Balkan Peninsula isolates the ground and dismembers it, making it even more inconvenient for people living on this land to communicate.

Those who live in the remote mountains, they use their own dialects to communicate with each other in their daily life, and they are illiterate and have no words at all.

Think about it, Ottoman Turkey did not have its own script, either official or missionary or using Arabic.

The assimilation ability is even weaker.

Ideographic characters, such as Chinese characters, even if the pronunciation is different, but the corresponding Chinese characters are the same, it is generally considered to speak the same language.

For example, Cantonese, Hokkien and northern dialects have very different pronunciations, and everyone still thinks they are the same language.

But phonetic writing is different. If people pronounce it differently, strictly speaking, it is not the same language.

Under the combined effect of various factors, the Balkan Peninsula has been formed. A considerable number of people do not even know what nationality they are.

Some people lost their sense of national identity during the long-term rule of multi-ethnic empires.

Therefore, in the Balkans, except for those with very obvious national characteristics, such as those who speak Slavic or Greek, they will say with certainty that I am Greek or Slavic, many people cannot clearly identify their own nationality.

In this special case, if such a person has received compulsory education in Greek, he will be a Greek from now on.

For example, in Macedonia, due to the long-term mixing, msl, Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, Jews, and Armenians are confused into a group, and it is difficult to distinguish Bulgarians and Serbs, because they are both It's a Slav.

However, if a child is exposed to Greek education since childhood, he will naturally be close to Greece.

This is why Constantine attached great importance to compulsory education. In the chaotic distribution of ethnic groups in the Balkans~www.wuxiaspot.com~ Compulsory education is not only education, but its special influence on the region cannot be ignored.

Wherever Greek compulsory education is extended, there will be more "Greeks".

Koledis and Ichios walked into the conference room together.

Koledis has been working in a bank before and is a practitioner in the financial industry, while Ichios is the rector of the University of Athens and has experience in education.

These two are the two executive members of the Royal Greek Educational Foundation selected by Constantine.

"Today I invited you two to tell you good news. The Congolese side has allocated the first fund of the foundation, and your work can begin," Constantine said to the two of them with joy.

"I want to hear about your plan to promote compulsory education in Greece"

"Mr. Duke, if it's convenient, can you first tell us how much the money is? After all, we need to live within our means." Corradis pushed the black-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose and asked.

"The first funding was £100,000"

"I think we should give priority to promoting education in some towns first. As we all know, farmers in Greece are not very willing to go to school, and the £100,000 is not enough. We can only promote it in towns where it is more feasible and wait until later. When the funds are relatively abundant, it can be extended to rural areas with backward infrastructure, so that the efficiency of compulsory education popularization is relatively more guaranteed.” Ikios calmly expressed his opinion.

"The investment in teaching facilities in the early stage is a lot of money, such as the construction of teaching buildings, but fortunately it is not a recurring expenditure, so this money, I am afraid that the education of school-age children in urban areas can only be partially solved." said.

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